Here’s your weekly headlines heading into the winter meetings:
- Of course in the biggest news of the week, the Red Sox hired new manager Bobby Valentine. Valentine comes to the Sox on a 2-year deal.
- The winter meetings will be going full bore this week and the Red Sox will surely be in the thick of it. Everyone except CEO/President Larry Lucchino who won’t be present. If that’s not a vote of confidence in new GM Ben Cherington, then almost dunno what would be.
- Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe is speculating whether or not the Red Sox may be considering Jed Lowrie, Josh Reddick and Kevin Youkilis as trade bait this week. Of the three – Josh Reddick is the one getting the most interest from other teams.
- The day after being introduced as the new Red Sox skipper, Bobby Valentine flew down to the Dominican Republic to take part in David Ortiz’s Celebrity Golf tournament.
- Ortiz has expressed deep interest in returning to the Red Sox, but his asking price is rumored to be quite high. Peter Abraham of the Globe reported that Ortiz is pointing to the deal the Chicago White Sox gave Adam Dunn (four years, $65 million) and the contract issued to Victor Martinez by the Detroit Tigers (4 years, $50 million) as guidelines.
- The hunt for starting pitching begins this week and it’s likely the Red Sox will come out of the Winter Meetings with something. They have met with both agents for Roy Oswalt and C.J.Wilson and have expressed a deep interest in Hiroki Kuroda. Kuroda seems intriguing due to the Dodgers signing Chris Capuano earlier this week. Kuroda was targeted by the Red Sox at the trade deadline and although an agreement was reached, Kuroda exercised his no-trade clause. With him conceivably being out in LA and with Bobby Valentine in Boston (who is hugely respected in Japan), Boston may be an interesting landing spot for the 36 year old. Wilson is rumored to have as many as six team interested in him and four have offered him a contract. There is no word as of right now if one of those teams was the Red Sox.
- The closer situation continues to be fairly fluid, with the Red Sox checking in on a variety of names. They have kept in touch with Scott Boras on the availability of former Phillies closer Ryan Madson and did the same with Heath Bell until he signed with the Miami Marlins earlier this week. The Oakland A’s are apparently also shopping their closer Andrew Bailey this offseason as well. Bailey would be the second closer to be linked to the Red Sox in trade talks this offseason, with Colorado’s Houston Street being the other. The Red Sox were reportedly very interested in former Dodgers closer Jonathan Broxton as well, but he wanted to sign before the Winter Meetings, something the club wasn’t comfortable with considering he hasn’t thrown yet since having season-ending surgery last year. According to Jon Heyman, the Red Sox appear to be content to wait the market out and pick up the best value possible.
- The Red Sox will be bolstering their bullpen in the coming weeks and have been linked to a variety of names – with Joel Zumaya and Luis Ayala’s names being whispered the loudest. Zumaya is coming off of elbow surgery, but has dialed it up to 100mph in the past as a member of the Detroit Tigers.
- Both the Mets and Orioles have checked in on Red Sox Captain Jason Varitek. Both are in need of backup catching help.
- Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle feels that Josh Willingham may be a fit with the Red Sox should the team fail to resign David Ortiz.
- The Red Sox signed reliever Tony Pena to a minor league deal and he has an invite to Spring Training.
- The Red Sox are beginning to piece together their coaching staff and have hinted at wanting to keep hitting coach Dave Magadin. D’Marlo Hale, former bench coach has drawn interest from the Orioles as a potential third base coach. In perhaps one of the more interesting speculations, it’s rumored that Bobby Valentine reached out to David Cone as a potential pitching coach. Rick Peterson is the other name being bandied about for the job.
- Tim Wakefield would like to play one more season for the Red Sox, but hasn’t ruled out the possibility of pitching in the
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